1,323 results match your criteria: "International Max Planck Research School[Affiliation]"

Dormancy is a wide-spread key life history trait observed across the tree of life. Many plankton species form dormant cells stages that accumulate in aquatic sediments and under anoxic conditions, form chronological records of past species and population dynamics under changing environmental conditions. Here we report on the germination of a microscopic alga, the abundant marine diatom Skeletonema marinoi that had remained dormant for up to 6871 ± 140 years in anoxic sediments of the Baltic Sea and resumed growth when exposed to oxygen and light.

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Eukaryotic transfer RNA (tRNA) precursors undergo sequential processing steps to become mature tRNAs. In humans, ELAC2 carries out 3' end processing of both nucleus-encoded (nu-tRNAs) and mitochondria-encoded (mt-tRNAs) tRNAs. ELAC2 is self-sufficient for processing of nu-tRNAs but requires TRMT10C and SDR5C1 to process most mt-tRNAs.

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Opportunities to advance microRNA research in psychiatry.

Eur Neuropsychopharmacol

December 2024

Institute of Psychiatric Phenomics and Genomics (IPPG), LMU University Hospital, LMU Munich, Munich, Germany. Electronic address:

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Under natural conditions, animals repeatedly encounter the same visual scenes, objects or patterns repeatedly. These repetitions constitute statistical regularities, which the brain captures in an internal model through learning. A signature of such learning in primate visual areas V1 and V4 is the gradual strengthening of gamma synchronization.

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Previous studies have suggested that choroid plexus (ChP) enlargement occurs in individuals with schizophrenia-spectrum disorders (SSD) and is associated with peripheral inflammation. However, it is unclear whether such an enlargement delineates a biologically defined subgroup of SSD. Moreover, it remains elusive how ChP is linked to brain regions associated with peripheral inflammation in SSD.

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Early life stress (ELS) can negatively impact health, increasing the risk of stress-related disorders, such as post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Importantly, PTSD disproportionately affects women, emphasizing the critical need to explore how sex differences influence the genetic and metabolic neurobiological pathways underlying trauma-related behaviors. This study uses the limited bedding and nesting (LBN) paradigm to model ELS and investigate its sex-specific effects on fear memory formation.

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Transcranial Direct Current Stimulation (tDCS) is a non-invasive brain stimulation technique used to modulates cortical brain activity. However, its effects on brain metabolites within the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC), a crucial area targeted for brain stimulation in mental disorders, remain unclear. This study aimed to investigate whether prefrontal tDCS over the left and right DLPFC modulates levels of key metabolites, including gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA), glutamate (Glu), glutamine/glutamate (Glx), N-acetylaspartate (NAA), near to the target region and to explore potential sex-specific effects on these metabolite concentrations.

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Extreme precipitation events are projected to intensify with global warming, threatening ecosystems and amplifying flood risks. However, observation-based estimates of extreme precipitation-temperature (EP-T) sensitivities show systematic spatio-temporal variability, with predominantly negative sensitivities across warmer regions. Here, we attribute this variability to confounding cloud radiative effects, which cool surfaces during rainfall, introducing covariation between rainfall and temperature beyond temperature's effect on atmospheric moisture-holding capacity.

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Intrinsically disordered regions (IDRs) are crucial to homeostatic and organellar remodeling pathways. In reticulophagy/ER-phagy, long cytosolic IDR-containing receptors (e.g.

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Cognitive decline and hearing loss are common in older adults and often co-occur while investigated separately, affecting the neural processing of speech. This study investigated the interaction between cognitive decline, hearing loss, and contextual cues in speech processing. Participants aged 60 years and older were assessed for cognitive decline using the Montreal Cognitive Assessment and for hearing ability using a four-frequency pure tone average.

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Astrocytes play key roles in brain function, but how these are orchestrated by transcription factors (TFs) in the adult brain and aligned with astrocyte heterogeneity is largely unknown. Here we examined the localization and function of the novel astrocyte TF Trps1 (Transcriptional Repressor GATA Binding 1) and the well-known astrocyte TF Sox9 by Cas9-mediated deletion using Mokola-pseudotyped lentiviral delivery into the adult cerebral cortex. Trps1 and Sox9 levels showed heterogeneity among adult cortical astrocytes, which prompted us to explore the effects of deleting either Sox9 or Trps1 alone or simultaneously at the single-cell (by patch-based single-cell transcriptomics) and tissue levels (by spatial transcriptomics).

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Article Synopsis
  • The Bale monkey is a threatened primate native to Ethiopia, living at high altitudes and primarily eating bamboo, with two distinct populations in continuous and fragmented bamboo forests.
  • Research aimed to explore the evolutionary history and genetic adaptations of Bale monkeys, highlighting differences in gene flow between the two populations.
  • Genome analysis revealed mutations linked to adaptations for high altitudes and bamboo diet, particularly in the continuous forest population.
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The human cerebral cortex shows hemispheric asymmetry, yet the microstructural basis of this asymmetry remains incompletely understood. Here, we probe layer-specific microstructural asymmetry using one post-mortem male brain. Overall, anterior and posterior regions show leftward and rightward asymmetry respectively, but this pattern varies across cortical layers.

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Article Synopsis
  • Huntington's disease (HD) is linked to psychiatric symptoms, but the effects of variations in the huntingtin gene (HTT) CAG repeat sizes on psychiatric disorders like major depressive disorder (MDD) and anxiety disorders (ANX) are not well-studied.
  • In this study, researchers compared CAG repeat sizes among patients with MDD and ANX to healthy controls, finding that certain repeat ranges did not show an overrepresentation among patients and that age influenced the associations between repeat sizes and psychiatric risks.
  • The findings suggest that variations in CAG repeat sizes in the non-HD range can modulate the risk for psychiatric disorders and affect basal ganglia structure, highlighting the potential impact of the normal huntingtin protein
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An integrated transcriptomic cell atlas of human neural organoids.

Nature

November 2024

Department of Biosystems Science and Engineering, ETH Zürich, Basel, Switzerland.

Human neural organoids, generated from pluripotent stem cells in vitro, are useful tools to study human brain development, evolution and disease. However, it is unclear which parts of the human brain are covered by existing protocols, and it has been difficult to quantitatively assess organoid variation and fidelity. Here we integrate 36 single-cell transcriptomic datasets spanning 26 protocols into one integrated human neural organoid cell atlas totalling more than 1.

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Heterochromatin plays a critical role in regulating gene expression and maintaining genome integrity. While structural and enzymatic components have been linked to heterochromatin establishment, a comprehensive view of the underlying pathways at diverse heterochromatin domains remains elusive. Here, we developed a systematic approach to identify factors involved in heterochromatin silencing at pericentromeres, subtelomeres and the silent mating type locus in Schizosaccharomyces pombe.

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Localization of brain neuronal IL-1R1 reveals specific neural circuitries responsive to immune signaling.

J Neuroinflammation

November 2024

Department of Biomedical Science, Charles E. Schmidt College of Medicine, Florida Atlantic University, 5353 Parkside Drive, Jupiter, FL, 33458, USA.

Interleukin-1 (IL-1) is a pro-inflammatory cytokine that exerts a wide range of neurological and immunological effects throughout the central nervous system (CNS) and is associated with the etiology of affective and cognitive disorders. The cognate receptor for IL-1, Interleukin-1 Receptor Type 1 (IL-1R1), is primarily expressed on non-neuronal cells (e.g.

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Human object perception depends on the proper integration of multiple visual features, such as color and motion. When features are integrated incorrectly, they are perceptually misbound and can cause illusions. This study investigates the phenomenon of continuous misbinding of color and motion features in peripheral vision, addressing the role of spatial continuity and color configuration in binding processes.

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Longstanding theory predicts that strategic flexibility in when and how to use social information can help individuals make adaptive decisions, especially when environments are temporally or spatially variable. A short-term increase in reliance on social information under these conditions has been experimentally shown in primates, including humans, but whether this occurs in other taxa is unknown. We asked whether migration between spatially variable environments affected social information use with a large-scale cultural diffusion experiment with wild great tits (Parus major) in captivity, a small passerine bird that can socially learn novel behaviors.

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Introduction: The TrkB receptor is known for its role in regulating excitatory neuronal plasticity. However, accumulating evidence over the past decade has highlighted the involvement of TrkB in regulating inhibitory synapse stability and plasticity, particularly through regulation of the inhibitory scaffold protein gephyrin, although with contradicting results.

Methods: In this study, we extended on these findings by overexpressing rat TrkB mutants deficient in either Shc-or PLCγ-dependent signaling, as well as a kinase-dead mutant, to dissect the contributions of specific TrkB-dependent signaling pathways to gephyrin clustering.

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Article Synopsis
  • Researchers have developed a stealthy neural recorder designed to monitor brain signals in non-human primates, allowing for the study of their natural behaviors.
  • The device features a fully implantable, wireless, battery-free module that records brain activity and movement, along with a flexible 32-electrode neural probe.
  • Successfully tested on a freely moving monkey, the recorder gathered data for over a month, which was then used to train an AI model to classify the animal's eating behaviors.
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A genome-engineered tool set for Drosophila TGF-β/BMP signaling studies.

Development

November 2024

CIBSS - Centre for Integrative Biological Signalling Studies, University of Freiburg, 79104 Freiburg, Germany.

Ligands of the TGF-β/BMP superfamily are crucially involved in the regulation of growth, patterning and organogenesis and can act as long-range morphogens. Essential for understanding TGF-β/BMP signaling dynamics and regulation are tools that allow monitoring and manipulating pathway components at physiological expression levels and endogenous spatiotemporal patterns. We used genome engineering to generate a comprehensive library of endogenously epitope- or fluorescent-tagged versions of receptors, co-receptors, transcription factors and key feedback regulators of the Drosophila BMP and Activin signaling pathways.

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Foxi1 is a master regulator of ionocytes (ISCs / INCs) across species and organs. Two subtypes of ISCs exist, and both α- and β-ISCs regulate pH- and ion-homeostasis in epithelia. Gain and loss of FOXI1 function are associated with human diseases, including Pendred syndrome, male infertility, renal acidosis and cancers.

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